BarCamp is an unconference – a gathering that turns the traditional notion of a “conference” upside-down. Rather than the content being determined by its organizers, it’s determined by the attendees. At the start of the conference, any attendee can propose a session topic, and if it’s accepted by the group, that session gets put on the schedule grid and assigned a time slot and a room. Sessions themselves are somewhat different from sessions at a traditional conference: while there’s still roles akin to a “presenter” or “presenters” and an “audience”, the line between the two is considerably more fuzzy. They’re closer in spirit to open discussions rather than lectures.

BarCamp Tour are not your typical sponsors. Just as BarCamp is an unconference that turns the notion of a conference upside-down, you might say that we’re “unsponsors” doing the same to what is traditionally viewed as sponsorship. Yes, we provide funding to various BarCamps, but we do something that most sponsors don’t do: we show up and participate. We help out the organizers with everything from putting together parties to helping move furniture and clean up. We take part in the sessions, sometimes as participants in the “audience”, sometimes as “presenters”. While we do promote our companies, it’s not in a hard-sell way, and often, we do it by listening to and learning from the people there – after all, they’re potential customers, partners and even hires.

BarCamp Seattle takes place this weekend on Saturday, June 24th and Sunday June 25th at the Adobe Conference Center in Seattle’s Fremont neighbourhood (801 N 34th Street). Saturday is a full day with check-in starting at 8:00 a.m. and the unconference kicking into full swing at 9:00 a.m.; Sunday is a half day with check-in starting around 8:00 a.m. (emphasis on around; there’s a party on Saturday night) and the unconference resuming at 9:00 a.m..

BarCamp New Orleans takes place on Saturday, July 16th and Sunday, July 17th at the Launch Pad coworking/startup space (643 Magazine Street, Suite 102). Registration on the Saturday is at a very civilized 9:30 a.m. with the unconference getting into full swing at 10:00 a.m. and running until 5:00 p.m.. Sunday is a “Hack Day” with registration at 9:30 a.m., start at 10:00 a.m. and running until 5:00 p.m..

A great collection of people have stepped forward and volunteered to help. I’ll be meeting with them online very shortly (I’m in Ottawa for the summer, but I return to Accordion City in the fall) to discuss what happens next, but know this: the first step toward bringing BarCamp back to Toronto has been made.

Some of the Shopifolks are travelling this weekend to some interesting events.

rspec::table, a.k.a. The Ruby Job Fair (Friday, May 20th)

If you’re in the Toronto area and looking for a job, you might want to drop by rspec::table employment, otherwise known as the Ruby Job Fair. Our friends at Unspace are holding this event, where Rubyists seeking employment can meet with potential employers.

It’s the third such event put together by Unspace, and it’s specifically aimed at those programmers who’ve eschewed more mainstream programming languages and frameworks for the Ruby, Rails and other Ruby-related goodies because, let’s face it, they’re fun. And hey, we believe that if you’re going to spend your working life — half your waking existence — doing something, it had better be fun, don’t you think?

Have you considered developing for Shopify? Think of it: we’re growing start-up that’s actually profitable, and that was before we secured that Series A funding. We’re in the business of helping people sell stuff online, a field whose growth is strong and steady. We’ve got some killer coders in the shop; I feel like the dumbest guy in the room when I’m around them (I’m okay with that — it has its advantages). The perks of working here are great, from the people to the gear and welcome swag to the location — not some soul-draining industrial park, but in Ottawa’sByWard Market: central, and the liveliest part of town.

If you’d like to get a job with us and in on some of this action, come on down to the Ruby Job Fair this Friday, May 20th at Unspace’s office (342 Queen Street West, Toronto, east of Spadina, above LuluLemon) from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. and say hello to the Shopifolk who’ll be there: Brittany, Edward and Julie!

BarCamp Oregon (Friday, May 20th – Saturday, May 21st)

Shopify is one of five startups that makes up the BarCamp Tour, a group helping sponsor BarCamps all over North America. Thus far, we’ve been to BarCamp Boston and MinneBar (a Minneapolis-based BarCamp serving all of the state of Minnesota). This weekend, we’ll be at the third BarCamp on the tour: Portland, Oregon, affectionately known to some as Portlandia:

BarCamp Portland is an unconference: a conference whose topics, sessions and schedules are determined by the attendees. On the start of the unconference day, people will propose session topics and set up a schedule, after which the unconferencing will begin. We’re expecting geeks of every sort to show up: not just the hackers, but artists, engineers, hobbyists, writers and poets, jokers and journalists, entrepreneurs, cooks and bakers, people who till the land or help neighbourhoods take shape, and anyone else who likes create.

Shopify, along with our partners on the BarCamp Tour — BatchBlue, Grasshopper, Mailchimp and Wufoo — isn’t your typical event sponsor. Yes, we’re each throwing in money to help BarCamp organizers hold their events, but we’re also there at the conference, actively participating, joining in the discussions, providing food and drinks, and even helping carry stuff or clean up. We’re also there to promote our companies, but not in a hard-sell way — we’re there to meet people who want to use our software and services, have questions and get to know the creative, inventive, ambitious people who attend BarCamps!

I’ll be there, helping out, facilitating sessions, answering questions about Shopify and playing accordion (of course). If you see me, please say hi!

Friday, May 20th: The Opening Social, which starts at 6:30 p.m. and runs until 9:00 p.m.. The idea behind this evening is to get everyone primed for the main event on the following day.

Saturday, May 21st: The Main Event: the actual unconference, with the big scheduling scrum happening at 9:00 a.m. and the sessions running from 10:00 a.m. until 9:00 p.m..

The BarCamp Tour

I’ll be there, because I’m representing Shopify, one of five startups that make up the…

…BarCamp Tour! Along with our friends BatchBlue, Grasshopper, Mailchimp and Wufoo, we’re sponsoring BarCamps across North America, and not in the typical way, either! Yes, we’re each throwing in money to help BarCamp organizers hold their events, but we’re also there at the conference, actively participating, joining in the discussions, providing food and drinks, and even helping carry stuff or clean up. We’re also there to promote our companies, but not in a hard-sell way — we’re there to meet people who want to use our software and services, have questions and get to know the creative, inventive, ambitious people who attend BarCamps!

Register!

Best of all, BarCamp is free-as-in-beer to attend. That’s right, it’ll cost you no money to come and participate. We do ask that you register at BarCamp Portland 5’s EventBrite page, and if you do fee like throwing in a little money to help cover the costs, you can do that too.

What is BarCamp?

BarCamp is an unconference: a gathering that turns the usual notion of a conference on its ear. There is no set agenda, no topics are pre-set and no speakers are pre-ordained: you, the attendees determine all that! On the start of the unconference day, people will propose session topics and set up a schedule, after which the unconferencing will begin. We’re expecting geeks of every sort to show up: not just the hackers, but artists, engineers, hobbyists, writers and poets, jokers and journalists, entrepreneurs, cooks and bakers, people who till the land or help neighbourhoods take shape, and anyone else who likes create.

As the BarCamp Portland site puts it:

Bring a demo or an idea and you will find people to talk about it with, but think of it less as a presentation and more as a conversation. Rest assured that you will exchange a lot of knowledge about your topic and many others with a lot of interesting people and come away thinking big thoughts.

Last Saturday, North America’s largest BarCamp ever took place in Minneapolis: the 6th editon of MinneBar. MinneBar is organized by Minne*, a group of Minnesota-based techies and designers who’ve come together to hold events and build a community. Their mission is to ensure that Minnesota continues to be a great place to have a tech- and/or design-based business.

And the BarCamp Tour is here to help them.

The 2011 BarCamp Tour

MinneBar is the second city on the 2011 BarCamp Tour, a North America-spanning tour where five entrepreneur-focused startups — Batchblue, Grasshopper, MailChimp, Shopify and Wufoo — travel far and wide to sponsor BarCamps. As our site says, we aren’t your typical sponsors; we don’t simply just write a cheque and paste our logos on the walls: we dive in and help out. Sure, we provide funding, but in order to make the event even better, we help out in all sorts of ways, from leading panel discussions to actively participating in sessions to helping move boxes and haul stuff around and even providing accordion backup for the band at the pre-party! We’re also there to meet people: developers, designers and business types in various cities’ entrepreneur communities.

We can help your city’s BarCamp. We encourage you to apply to be a part of the BarCamp Tour. Sell us on why your entrepreneurial community is bursting at the seams and we’ll get back to you. If selected, we help you as the BarCamp organizer with some of your biggest pain points, like funding and promotion. We want to help you take your BarCamp to the next level. Oh… did we mention we throw really amazing after parties?

Go ahead, apply! We’d love to come to your city and help make your BarCamp awesome.

Minnebar Pre-Party

The pre-party took place on Friday night at Old Arizona and featured free local draft and the Como Avenue Jug Band, who invited me to join them on accordion. I had my hands full either playing or chatting, so these were the only photos I managed to get:

Minnebar Begins

I was stunned when I heard that 1,200 people had registered for Minnebar. Luckily, there’s a venue in the Minneapolis area that’s capable of handling that many people, when gathered en masse or when they break off into different sessions: the corporate headquarters of geeky mega-retailer Best Buy, located in Richfield.

Alas, it’s a place where you can’t pack heat:

It takes a good while to get over 1,000 people into a place, confirm they’re registered and give them their “Hello, my name is…” sticker, unconference schedule and T-shirt:

In spite of the large number of people they had to process on the way in, the volunteer staff did so cheerfully, and the intake went rather smoothly.

It’s not a tech event without a T-shirt, and MinneBar was most certainly a tech event. The “Early 1960s Pop” look of the design might’ve been something that Don Draper would’ve approved, and it’s got a certain hipster appeal:

A quick point of information: there is no BarCamp Tour bus, in spite of what the graphics on our site, stickers and the sign below say:

It’s a symbolic bus; we’re not living together on a bus travelling from BarCamp to BarCamp, MTV reality-show style, amusing as that might be (if it ever becomes the case, I want to be our answer to “The Situation“). Between BarCamps, we’re back in our respective cities working away at our jobs.

Hello, Minnesota!

Pictured below are Rob Stephens, CTO of Best Buy (and creator of Geek Squad), and Luke Francl, one of the three people who organized MinneBar. Rob deserves our thanks for opening up Best Buy’s HQ on a Saturday to over a thousand random nerds.

With the lion’s share of the attendees registered, it was time to get the conference rolling with a quick set of opening announcements. They were made by the organizers: Luke, Ben Edwards and Adrienne Pierce:

Everyone gathered for the opening session at Sandy’s Place, the name of the dining hall at Best Buy HQ. Hanging above the tables are a number of postcards in the “Greetings from” style showing the names of various cities, including Original Accordion City:

Adrienne, Ben and Luke were kind enough to thank all the sponsors, both in their opening remarks as well as on the big screen behind them:

The Sessions

MinneBar deviated from the standard BarCamp formula: all sessions were determined in advance, with pre-specified speakers and topics. This arrangement is closer in spirit to a more standard conference, but the speakers either left plenty of room in their presentations for dialogue or made their sessions more like workshops or open discussions, allowing for more back-and-forth exchanges. People were also free to claim any unused space and start their own sessions, although I didn’t see any central schedule board where people could find out where and when such sessions were taking place.

Since MinneBar took place in a single day and the process of suggesting, vetting and scheduling sessions in a unconference takes the better part of the morning, the decision to use a more standard conference format probably helped buy more time for sessions. The number of people involved may also have been a factor. Still, it would’ve been nice to have some slots open for more unconference-style ad hoc sessions, and Luke said that he’d like to see that at next year’s event.

I spent my time bouncing between sessions in order to get photos as well as a better feel for what this particular city’s BarCamps were like.

One of the first sessions of the day was Six Reasons to Open an “Offline” Store (Especially if You Sell Online) and How to Do It Right, led by Daniel Kent:

Here are my notes from that session:

Perceived Risk

Landlords are giving lots of money to prospective tenants to open physical stores

Finding larger companies who are willing to do those things themselves

Q: What was the biggest success with your branding?

Michelle: Selling to small business web

Having Google call us and sponsor a panel at SxSW

Amy: Open, robust, well-documented API

Stephanie: Support for entrepreneurs

Got Obama to support National Entrepreneur’s Day

When one of the audience members asked about creating a culture that supports the brand, I stepped in and brought up a couple of points:

Follow Zappos’ example. At the end of Microsoft’s MIX Conference in March, the Windows Phone 7 “Champs” team (of which I was a member) went to Zappos headquarters for their legendary tour as well as a culture consultation. We started with the tour, which was run by the very enthusiastic members of their culture team, where we saw the day-to-day operations and dynamic. They’re very clearly a group of people who enjoy what they do and care about customer service. Afterwards, we were gathered into a boardroom for a presentation and discussion of starting a great company culture. I told the group that they should pick up Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh’s book Delivering Happiness, and if possible, go to Zappos HQ and get the tour and culture consultation.

Provide guides. I pointed to the US Air Force’s rules of engagement for social media and Shopify’s employee handbook (pictured here); both are great examples of documents that help shape an organization’s culture. (I’m going to write about the Shopify book in an upcoming post.)

Some of the sessions were in meeting rooms designed for a dozen or so people; others took place in larger amphitheatre-style rooms:

I’ve been in the blogging game for nearly ten years (the 10th anniversary of The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century is in November), so I couldn’t resist Joseph Reuter’s session, Why Don’t You Blog More?

Without an aim, it’s likely that you will succumb to your perception of what other people want from you.

Therefore, successful blogs have a content strategy, or put another way, a confidence strategy

That strategy may or may not be explicit

In blogging, sequence does not denote importance

Bloggers have an edge

They have access to:

Information

Perspective

Q: People who try blogging and get turned off because it’s just writing?

Example of Gary Vaynerchuk and video

Improve the system?

Problems with distribution:

Audience size limited by blog visits

Audience size limited by number of interested visitors who also understand RSS and reading behaviour

Problems with motivation satisfaction:

Need others to see what you’re doing

Dan Ariely: Books, stories and recognition

Problems with rhythm

We watch a lot of TV and read news but as an aggregate population, we don’t write

Hence we don’t have rhythm or tricks or confidence to write

Problem with time

Our perception: if we have something to say, it takes too much time to make a blog post bullerproof or ready for public consumption

Solutions

Twitter:

Problem: Blog posts are too long and hard to write

Solution: Posts are 140 characters, max

Problem: Jumping around to blofa is hard for readers

Solution: Twitter has a built-in reader and follower counts

Posterous:

Problem: The process of making a post is too hard

Solution: Posterous championed mailing it in

Few people willing write for no readers

Ways forward:

We read and have opinions – find ways to share them

We care what other people think – Have a content/confidence strategy

We care that our work is recognized – find a way to get others to share what they’re thinking when they read your content. Find good analytics software.

Structure ways to how they are engaging with your content in a way that is meaningful to you. Get those metrics automatically delivered

Hawthorne effect and blogging

The single best way to engage with Facebook:

Comment on other’s people stuff

Creators need to be commenters, commenters need to be creators

Joseph ended his session with the slide in the photo above: “Who is this guy? What’s his story? Unless he writes it down, we’ll never know.”

The final session I caught was Jeff Lin’s The Missing Web Curriculum: What Every Web Professional Should Have Learned, in which he talked about addressing the disconnect between higher education and real-world web development:

A couple of Jeff’s observations that stuck out for me were:

“Instead of spending 80 bucks on an outdated textbook, I had the students spend 10 bucks registering a domain name.”

A poke at Dreamweaver and similar web design tools: “WYSIWYG is short for ‘WhY don’t you juSt learn to write code and stop Wasting Your enerGy on learning bad tools?'”

Post-Minnebar

At the end of the day, we reconvened in Sandy’s Place for closing remarks and copious quantities of Surly Beer. I also worked the room, talking to people about their work, and telling them about having recently joined Shopify.

The organizers decided to get together with some of their friends at Bryant-Lake Bowl and invited me along. That place is many things: hipster diner, bowling alley, fringe theatre and all-round fun place:

We had dinner (that’s a Walleye Po’ Boy pictured below):

Of course, we went bowling:

Sharp! Perhaps I should get a pair of these, just for walkin’ around:

Here I am, on my way to a killer spare:

After bowling, I joined Casey Allen and some of his local entrepreneur friends for tasty beverages:

There’s something about whiskey and entrepreneurship — they go together like peanut butter and chocolate, or bacon and everything.

Other Takes on MinneBar

When it comes to tech and design, Minnesota punches well above its weight class, and thus I wasn’t the only one chronicling Minnebar.

I’ve been travelling quite a bit this week.On Monday, I moved to Ottawa for the summer, spending the better part of the day on the road in miserable weather. My first week at Shopify was a short one, running only from Tuesday through Thursday because I spent all of today in transit, flying from Ottawa to Minneapolis by way of Toronto. I took the above photo earlier today on the Ottawa-Toronto leg. (I will have to write about the Shopify new employee handbook sometime; I’ve never seen anything like it at any of my other workplaces, or at any of my friends’ workplaces.)

As I write this, I’m in Minneapolis, getting ready to go to the MinneBar pre-party to catch up with my fellow BarCamp Tour representatives as well as a number of Minneapolis-based friends. The actual MinneBar event takes place tomorrow at Best Buy Headquarters, after which I’m sure some form of mayhem will ensue. I’ve been shooting pictures like mad on my new camera (a Canon PowerShopt ELPH 300 HS, and it’s a pocket dynamo) and along with the photos will a lot of blog entries.

Speaking of blog entries, my article That’s Not OCD, You’re Just a Slacker racked up 79,000 hits on Global Nerdy yesterday and 47,000 today thanks to StumbleUpon. The comments have been quite interesting — the photo on which the article is based might as well be a sort of Rorschach test based on the variety of responses.